You Know Why
Author: J.T. Ellison
Genre: Domestic Thriller | Psychological Thriller | Mystery | Suspense
Format: eARC
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐½ — 4.5/5
Synopsis
Brooklyn Locke seems to have a pretty great life: two children, a successful photography career, and a husband, Trey, who appears devoted to his family.
Then Trey unexpectedly announces that they're spending the holidays in Italy.
The trip barely gets started before things begin going wrong. Their flights are rerouted through Atlanta, Trey starts behaving strangely, and a woman on the plane recognizes him—but calls him by another name.
Then, just before they're supposed to board their connecting flight, Trey disappears.
Brooklyn soon discovers that money has been moved and accounts frozen. Even worse, the seemingly kind stranger who offers to help her isn't actually a stranger at all.
Eden claims Trey was once married to her sister.
A sister who was murdered while pregnant.
And Trey was the main suspect.
As Brooklyn tries to reconcile the husband she knows with the man Eden describes, an accident leaves her injured and struggling with her memory. But Trey isn't the only person with secrets, and Brooklyn's own past might be far more important than she realizes.
My Thoughts
So... this book was quite the shaworma of secrets, lies, suspicious people and WTF IS ACTUALLY GOING ON.
But somehow...
It worked.
Brooklyn seems to have a pretty great life. She has two children, a beautiful home, a successful career as a photographer, and a husband, Trey, who appears to absolutely adore his family.
Then Trey suddenly announces they're going to Italy for the holidays.
Impromptu is putting it mildly.
Apparently Trey has serious anxiety about flying, which makes the spontaneous international trip slightly strange already, but Brooklyn agrees, the kids are excited aaaand off they go.
Everything seems relatively normal until their flight plans change and they're rerouted through Atlanta.
Suddenly Trey is acting WEIRD.
He's anxious, snappy, and even accuses Brooklyn of deliberately changing their flights. She assumes it's his fear of flying getting the better of him and tries to calm him down.
Okay. Fine.
Except then someone on the plane recognizes Trey.
Only she calls him by another name.
She claims they went to school together.
Trey insists she's mistaken.
🚩
Where is the flag guy when you need him???
Sir?
Before their connecting flight to Italy, Trey tells Brooklyn he needs to use the bathroom and that she should board with the children.
And then...
He disappears.
Completely.
No husband.
No explanation.
No Italy.
And Brooklyn soon discovers that disappearing is apparently only the beginning because money has been moved and accounts have been frozen.
Merry Christmas!
Brooklyn is stranded with two children, trying to understand why the supposedly loving husband she'd built an entire life with has suddenly vanished, when Eden, the stranger from their flight, offers to help her.
Except Eden isn't exactly a stranger.
She has her own connection to Trey.
According to Eden, Trey was once married to her sister, his childhood sweetheart.
And her sister was murdered.
While pregnant.
And Trey was the main suspect.
EXCUSE ME?!
Eden and the detective who investigated the murder begin telling Brooklyn about a version of her husband she doesn't recognize at all. Before Brooklyn can even begin processing that information, she's struck by a car in a hit-and-run and wakes up dealing with injuries and memory problems.
Meanwhile, Trey is still missing.
Eden is becoming increasingly involved in Brooklyn's life.
And I trusted approximately...
NOBODY.
What makes everything even messier is that Brooklyn has secrets in her own past.
Before Trey and the quiet family life, she traveled as a photographer alongside a famous chef and her then-boyfriend. That period of her life ended badly, and as more pieces of Brooklyn's history emerge, you start questioning whether the story you've been given about HER is entirely reliable either.
So now we're juggling:
Where is Trey?
Who the hell is Trey?
Can Eden be trusted?
What happened to Trey's first wife?
What really happened in Brooklyn's past?
Why did Trey move the money?
Who hit Brooklyn?
And WHY IS EVERYBODY SO SUSPICIOUS?!
It is a lot.
At certain points, this plot became an entire shaworma of mysteries.
There are multiple timelines and backstories, Brooklyn's past, Trey's past, Eden's agenda, murder investigations, financial questions, memory issues...
But here's the thing:
I wanted answers.
Rather than the different mysteries making me lose interest, they kept making me more curious. Every time I thought I had a decent idea of what might be happening, another piece of information arrived and made me reconsider somebody.
I especially enjoyed how much the story plays with perception. Brooklyn thinks she knows the man she's married to, but we're gradually forced to question how well anyone really knows another person.
And eventually, you start wondering whether that question applies to Brooklyn too.
There were moments when I thought:
Okay, surely THIS explains everything.
Nope.
Next layer of the shaworma...
I won't say anything about where all of this eventually leads because discovering which pieces are true, which aren't, and how these seemingly separate stories fit together is half the fun.
Final Thoughts
You Know Why was twisty, messy in the best way, suspenseful, and extremely difficult to put down.
There is A LOT happening here, and in another thriller that many competing mysteries could easily have become overwhelming. Instead, I genuinely enjoyed trying to untangle everything and figure out who was lying, who could be trusted, and how all those pieces were eventually going to fit together.
Mostly, though, I spent the entire book suspicious of everyone.
Including, occasionally, the people I probably wasn't supposed to be suspicious of.
Better safe than sorry.
And somehow J.T. Ellison managed to take an entire shaworma of mysteries and make me want every last layer.
Rating: 4.5⭐
ARC Disclaimer
Thank you to Thomas & Mercer and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this ARC. All opinions are my own.
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